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NYC; Getting Rich By Making Stuff Up

THE many ceremonies held in the city yesterday to honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired me to jettison a deep reluctance to get personal in print.

Maybe it's time to write a long-suppressed memoir of how I was at Dr. King's side when he delivered his unforgettable "I Have a Dream" speech in Washington in August 1963.

This memory journey would have to come in book form, of course. The old-fashioned conventions of journalism rule out a column on the subject. A few irritating facts might get in the way.

For instance, I was working in the summer of 1963 as an office boy at the Hearst Corporation. For all I know, there are records stored somewhere in the Hearst archives to show that, in fact, I was on the job here in New York on that August day and not in Washington with Dr. King.

And the essential truth is that I stood solidly with Dr. King, particularly when he yearned for a day when people "will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." Amen.

O.K., I was in the office watching on television when those words boomed across the Mall in Washington. But that is a petty detail. Spiritually, I was at Dr. King's side. Isn't that the essential truth?

Oh, and while we're at it, can anyone tell me how to get in touch with Oprah Winfrey?

Maybe I can be the next James Frey.

Mr. Frey, as you may have heard, hit the jackpot with his best-selling memoir, "A Million Little Pieces," a tale of how he overcame drug addiction, alcoholism and a criminal past to find his rightful place in this sad world. This being modern America, redemption was followed in short order by an agent, a publisher, an Oprah book endorsement and the ultimate anointment: an interview with Larry King.

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Only it turns out that Mr. Frey's memoir might be more accurately titled "A Million Little Specious Pieces." Essential details, it turns out, were made up. To take but one example, he did not spend three months in jail, as he wrote. It was more like three hours.

Belatedly confessing to fabrications a few days ago, he nonetheless defended his book as revealed "essential truth" -- how he conquered his demons. Ms. Winfrey stood by him and his "underlying message of redemption." So did Doubleday and Anchor Books, the divisions of Random House that published his book in hardcover and paperback. After all, the publishers said in a statement that amounted to a "What me worry?" shrug, a memoir "by definition" is "highly personal."

Yeah. Anyone could confuse a few hours in jail with a few months, especially if he has brains addled by booze and drugs. Can't blame book publishers, those pillars of New York culture, for a little glitch like that, can you?

Presumably, it would be fine with them were we to learn that Lance Armstrong triumphed over nothing more serious than saddle sores, that Frank McCourt was born to landed gentry and that Joan Crawford actually adored wire hangers. Really, would it matter if we discovered that Marcel Proust's true passion was oatmeal cookies? All this stuff, remember, is highly personal by definition.

IF that doesn't work, why not a book on my days as a Vietnam soldier? Actually, I was "Vietnam era." Though drafted in 1968 at the height of the war, I ended up on an Army base in Germany. But I interviewed many soldiers who had seen fierce action in Vietnam. The essential truth is that I came to feel as if I had been there myself.

If not that, how about a memoir focused on my days at Attica state prison? Those were rough times. Granted, I was there as a reporter, not an inmate. But I bet I've seen more prison cellblocks than Mr. Frey has.

Or why not a book with a working title like "Mickey and Me." There I was in right field, right by the great Mantle in center. Of course, I was in the stands. But the "emotional truth" -- another concept advanced by Mr. Frey -- is that I was close to Mickey, very close.

More to the point, and all kidding aside, doesn't anyone around here have Oprah's e-mail address?